In-flight entertainment (IFE) systems have been deployed onboard aircraft to provide entertainment, such as movies, television, audio entertainment programming, electronic games, and other electronic content to passengers. IFE systems are increasingly using wireless access points to provide the electronic content from a content server to passenger equipment that is carried on-board (e.g., cellular phones, tablet computers, laptop computers), seat video display units (SVDUs), and other communication terminals within the aircraft. Some IFE systems provide wireless controllers, also referred to as passenger control units (PCUs), at passenger seats that are wirelessly connected through Bluetooth to the seats' SVDUs, and which can be held by passengers and operated to control content selection and playback through the SVDUs. IFE systems may also allow passengers to use Bluetooth connectivity to their electronic devices (e.g., wireless headphones, cellular phone terminals, laptops, tablet computers, health monitoring devices, other passenger wearables, etc.) to control SVDUs. The PCUs, electronic devices transported by passengers onto the aircraft, and other Bluetooth electronic devices that can be handheld by passengers during flight and can be connected via Bluetooth to SVDUs and/or other electronic devices of a system, are collectively referred to as Passenger Electronic Devices (PEDs) for convenience.
The proliferation of PEDs operating simultaneously and with unsynchronized use of the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific and Medical (ISM) radio resources within an aircraft cabin, can result in significant difficulty when attempting to select a desired one of the PEDs for connection to a SVDU or another electronic device. Although the SVDU, for example, may display for a passenger a list Bluetooth identifiers of PEDs that have discovered through Bluetooth signaling, the identifiers may provide little help to passenger with identifying which PED from among potentially dozens or hundreds of listed PEDs should be selected for connection to the SVDU. Selecting a wrong PED or a sequence of wrong PEDs can result in failed SVDU operation, present a security risk to the SVDU operation, and/or reduce the quality of service provided by the IFE system to passengers.